yes tilly, 'when will there be good news' is another jackson brodie. i am quite flattened by kate atkinson. totally absorbing, harrowing and engaging. but sort of forgettable. am going to try case histories again i think.

my library is having barbara ewing in next week with the mesmerist for their book club.

Just finished the book a day late gah!, have been reading on and off for 3 weeks. Reading and 2 month old baby do not seem to be compatible. That said, I really enjoyed the book, roll on Jan!

Sorry morningpaper - I was wondering where you were, should have sent you a text. Can do that next time if you want?

Can't believe you're already wrapping your presents - mine are still awaiting identification. Got my 6 month old sorted (scrunched up wrapping paper) but everyone else is a mystery.

I CAN'T BELIEVE I MISSED IT

I WAS HERE FOR ABOUT TEN MINUTES AND THEN I STARTED WRAPPING CHRISTMAS PRESENTS FFS

well I'm 12 hours too late

"It can be odd to be totally absorbed by a book even when you're not sure you actually LIKE it very much. "

I agree

and also I agree with the poster who said it seemed like a warning not to have children because it opens you up to so much vulnerability

(but that might have been me projecting my own terrors feelings)

I thought the humour was good but there isn't much you can do to lift that sort of story into the humorous

I can't believe I fecking missed it AND there's no book club next month <pout>

can we sign up to an email alert when the book club discussion starts?!

OMG I COMPLETELY FORGOT ABOUT THIS

<cries> I read the book and everything

I agree lalaa as I read it in small chunks before I fell asleep each night. Would pick it up next eve trying to remember which story I was following. It actually moved a bit too slowly for me, by the time the Caroline story was introduced I was almost losing interest in the large number of characters and just wanting the story to move on.

Thanks everyone for a great chat. Currently trying to decide whether to get to grips with her new HB - anyone who has read it please let me know what you make of it (and if it is as harrowing as this one).

Details of 2009 dates to come.

I found this difficult to put down, but also difficult to keep up with - the different cases running along side each other sometimes lost me. This, I think in part is because I was reading it in 10 minute bursts before I fell asleep but also because it was like three different stories, and I never really got to 'know' most of the characters as much as I would have liked to. I would have liked to have known more about the Caroline character, and about Jackson himself. Some of the characters and their back-stories were difficult to retain in my mind!

Was on the edge of snow at weekend in Hertfordshire, and that was enough for me. No power cuts.

Having a Christmas break for December - we toyed with the idea of doing ghost stories but decided everyone was probably too busy with the stollen and the Sellotape to get together and discuss.

Back with a bang in January though. I will post a thread giving the dates and announcing Christmas break. Should have done it today but was interrupted by powercut (does anyone else live in E. Anglia here? And have they been having the same massive snowstorms? We had a complete white out at the weekend, proper blizzards, snowmen and everything...)

I thought it was awful to even the idea of letting children sleep alone in tents in a garden, but then remembered I did it with a few others, before I was at secondary school.

Q - are we having a December book club, or having a Christmas break to make more time for stuffing down stollen?

bugger. totally forgot this was happening today. will read thread directly!

Yes, very true that the bad things were ordinary life gone a wrong. Not grand, exceptional circumstances like most crime novels but just everyday family drama or random events.

They all seemed like accidents. Quite different to the pre-meditated Agatha Christie stylee whodunnits.

I think there was a theme around families in general being troubled and tragic. Even for Jackson in losing his mum and sister and then splitting from his wife who's going to take his daughter to New Zealand.

I did get to a point of thinking why I am reading another story about awful things happening to girls, and did try to see an overall point being made, though I'm not sure I found one. Apart from the obvious one that we live in a society where awful things happen to girls and children.
I have a son but reading this did make me more jumpy than usual about keeping him within sight.

I have a daughter, I don't think this made me worry any more than I already do, but I found it very depressing to think about it all. I seem to recall a real case of a small girl being snatched from a tent in her garden a few years ago.

I think the most worrying/tragic was Laura, who seemed to lead such a perfect sort of life, and it was just total chance that she was killed.

But if anything, it made me realise that you can't always protect them. Theo thought he was protecting his daughter by keeping her close by at his office rather than encouraging her to take a gap year. It was his daughter who was far from home who survived. In fact all the situations in which these bad things happened were ordinary, mundane, everyday situations. Therefore, there is no point wasting your time worrying, bad things can always happen.

There was almost a warning that loving a child too much is inviting grief into your life- Theo's love for Laura and Rosemary's for Olivia for example, and even with Brodie and his daughter, which I found really sad.

apologies for that last post by the way, seems I have the forward slash button stuck to my index finger...

fishie, Kate Atkinson unavailable due to new book promotion etc so too difficult to fit in.

Is When Will there be Good News a Jackson Brodie book too?

Despite some of my grumbles above I still think Atkinson is great. Like Hassled, I wouldn't mind being her when I grow up...

Who has daughters amongst us? how did it make you feel about their safety/innocence/future? Because all the terrible things in the book happen to young girls/women and there were times where I felt Atkinson was making strong social comments about the vulnerability of women, and the need to protect/support/watch out for them.

sorry am not on same book as you, currently half way through 'when will there be good news' which nearly made me cry on the district line at 7.30am. so, morningpaper, yes it is dead harrowing but i'd rather that than bad writing.

i was going to reread case histories to join in, but had ordered other from library and it arrived so..

anyway, i agree that some of the plot doesn't stand up. but i do enjoy her writing so much, totally gripping and i haven't noticed the brackets. this later one is a lot about motherhood so far. also i rather love jackson brodie.

tilly, did kate atkinson turn nose up or just unavailable?

Yes, Psychobabble, I think that is what I've been trying to say - you have put it very succinctly!

I actually wondered for a few pages if she had actually meant the house had been blown up, or whether it had been a metaphor for something!

Perhaps lazy is a bit harsh, I think really the style was not to my taste, but also the subject matter deserved something a bit more 'weighty' in places.

pyschobabble, just wanted to say the blowing up of house had me scratching head too. In fact a lot of incidents involving Jackson were slightly random I felt, and the book moved on from them so quickly that I never go to grips with why they were there. Perhaps all crime novels need red herrings.

I don't think the writing was lazy. I do think it is Atkinson's style to use brackets, jump back and forth, have a lot of black humour, etc. I'm just not sure if it works so well in a crime genre as it does in a non-genre book.

I agree completely on Jackson as a stereotypical Private Eye - Jackson's character + plus the Cambridge setting made me think the Author has a clear eye on the prize of an ITV primetime serialisation.

He did remind me a bit of Ian Rankin's Rebus - the only one I can think of who exudes any kind of happiness and contentment is the one in Midsomer Murders -can't remember his name!

Yes they overlapped but I thought they might interconnect a wee bit more - other than via Jackson that is. Having gone to all that trouble it seemed to me there might have been just one more plot twist?
I agree Laura was too perfect, though I did find myself wondering what Theo had done and thinking I should copy that and end up with a perfect daughter... I did think that Jennifer as the un-favourite child was a good likeness.

Yes, TillyBookClub, I think it is a very good device when writing a series of short stories, but it makes one complete novel somewhat disjointed.

Shall we talk about Jackson? Agree that his sister/brother's death is one of the saddest parts of all. And like him as a character - in that I think I would like him if I met him in real life. But wonder if a detective can ever be anything but the loner/drinker/misunderstood-by-wife/soft-inside-really stereotype. Can there be a detective that announces their unstinting happiness and contentment with the world before going out to solve gritty homicides?

Oh the odd bracket is acceptable and would have much more impact if used sparingly. On one page there were six instances of brackets, eg "There seemed to be ancient Cambridge customs for most things (sorry, Oxford)." What's the point??

You do end up comparing the storylines, don't you? I could have skipped the Shirley/Michelle one too. The Olivia one could have been an entire book, perhaps with more background into why Victor was so awful. The Theo/Laura one was for me the least well characterised (could any daughter be that perfect?) but moving.

Amelia and Julia were perhaps a wee bit too ying/yang, but I did find them appealing and interesting. And Jackson's involvement with them is far deeper than with anyone else.

I enjoyed the fact that the stories overlapped, an extra dimension of guesswork - I remember Behind the Scenes at the Museum having the same pleasure in connecting everyone together. The only problem was that here I felt some of it was forced to make the 'mystery' happen. Where as in Behind the Scenes... it is a device that naturally intrigues and gives structure to a family saga.

oops used brackets - sorry Grandmabet!

'I would not place her among the top writers of today.'
I agree, some of the writing was really lazy.

Another example of something that irritated me was describing Jackson's sisters body as 'sluicy' when it came out of the canal. I actually didn't think this was a word, but it is in the dictionary - still it doesn't fit the context very well. A moment in the story like that needs much more careful, beautiful writing. (Am I being too pedantic here? )

I was most (solely) moved by Jackson's family tale - his siblings demise. I thought the Land sisters were a bit panto English eccentric, as were Caroline's dh and m-i-l and guess that the sister had killed Caroline's husband.

I especially enjoyed the characterisation of Rosemary as depressed mum and Theo as devoted father. They had some great moments - but agree was all v sad. Not a feel good book by any means.

Yes, I agree that the characters needed some humour, and indeed many people would bring that to these kinds of situations, but it was ruined by the constant throw away remarks which prevented the real tragedies from showing through (for me). I think using brackets is a very lazy way of writing and that is why I would not place her among the top writers of today.

I started to think that the mother had done it, so save the daughter from the father, but didn't guess that Sylvia had done it.
Also didn't guess that the sister had the axe.

As for twists I don't think this novel had many. I guessed Sylvia was a murderer because she was a nutter anyway and also guessed that some other weirdo had killed Laura. Maybe the biggest twist was that Shirley axed Keith and not Michelle / Caroline. But that wasn't a huge twist really. In fact I don't understand why Shirley killed Keith - I've realised there wasn't really a motive for each murder apart from the fact the killers were probably all insane. Not much detective work for Brodie really!

The biggest surprise for me was that Sylvia was responsible for Olivia's death.

I think she could have balanced the humour and lightness with a bit more seriousness. Some things were just too lightly dealt with IYSWIM. eg when Jackson's house was blown up she just said 'then his house exploded' and that was it! I actually found the part where Jackson was being stalked quite implausible.

I think the characterisation was the strongest part of this novel and agree that the ending of each story was explained away a bit weakly. Maybe if you got really analytical you could argue the characters need humour to view their situations because their stories are so horrible - not sure though. I didn't enjoy reading this book either but it did get under my skin a bit and gave me a few horrible dreams at night!

I admit I was gripped by it, I read it in 3 days because I couldn't put it down! I was disappointed that Olivia turned out to have died, I was desperate for Caroline to turn out to be Olivia! I didn't like the contrived ending either, and it annoyed me that some of the ends weren't properly tied up. Did Caroline run off with the Vicar? Was Lily Rose ever identified as Tanya and found by her Aunt?

I felt it might have been better if she had left out the story about the two sisters and the husband murdered with the axe, and spent more on the story of the Land family which was far more interesting.

I actually didn't think the characterisation was all that good at times. Amelia and Julia were not well rounded characters IMO. I had trouble telling them apart at times. I felt the female characters were all defined by how much sex they had (or didn't have in Amelia's case).

I found that wass the problem - I wasn't totally absorbed because her slic writing got in the way. When I had finished I found I had not been moved in any way except for feelings of frustration at all the levity.

Agree with lemurtamer that the ending is way too tidy.

Did anyone second guess any of the plot twists? What was the biggest surprise?

Yes, uncomfortable is the right word exactly. I think she is a super-sharp writer, with an incredible eye for charaterisation, and sometimes her humour in describing a character can be right. But there were definitely times where I couldn't stomach a 'funny' line because it grated with the terrible grief that almost everyone is suffering from.

I did think it was a very gripping read, even though the plot twists could be a little contrived. It can be odd to be totally absorbed by a book even when you're not sure you actually LIKE it very much.

I think I found the ending in which all the good characters end up "tidied up" a bit too familiar, or pedestrian. Though not quite so tidy that Tanya was found by her sister, possibly for the best given she had found a happy home.

Her "humour" irritated me immensely and the fact that she put so much in brackets - virtually everything was a joke. It was just too slick and even the "harrowing" bits were not that harrowing because she belittled them. I read lots of reviews and they all raved about the book, so I am completely out of kilter with most people - a good story ruined by the author!

i didn't find it funny particularly, though had forgotten about the ponies, which was funny at the time but awful in retrospect. I didn't find it harrowing as posters above did, but grim and relentless.
I did enjoy it as book though, and don't know why I haven't read more of hers since Behind the Scenes.

I don't view this as a 'funny' book but the comedy in it mainly works I think. I found the beginning funnier (esp describing the Land mother and daughters) but found it less so when the more gruesome parts of the story were revealed. I struggled with Michelle / Caroline describing her baby as 'the bug' - sort of funny and I can understand the character's thinking like that. But that bit made me feel uncomfortable.

I didn't like it. I don't object to a crime/comedy mix but I don't think it was done very well. I found some of the comic writing annoying. eg when she said Victor was 'decomposing quietly' in his coffin. Probably meant to be funny but I found that irritating (how else does one decompose?) That's just one example.

I found the book quite depressing and the ending was not resolved enough for me to shake the depression off after I had finished it IYSWIM.

So....my opening gambit is going to be: did you find find this book funny? or too harrowing/gruesome to be funny?

It is Atkinson's humour that I like best, and that makes this book a more complex crime novel. But is the humour somehow inappropriate given the material?

(e.g when Sylvia starts hearing voices and goes all Joan of Arc, her mum briefly worries about it but then considers its 'cheaper than an obsession with ponies' and lets it carry on. And hey presto, she kills her sister)

What did everyone else think about the comic/crime mix?

i loved it - well written, a page turner, spooky, but with humour (love the detective) - love the dead ends eg the air stewardess. will now read others!

Have finished reading too although not sure I can join in tomorrow (might have to dip in and out). Found it very readable but yes, very harrowing.

Looking forward to seeing y'all tomorrow at 8pm - as its just us this time, we'll probably keep it to 1 1/2 hour max and finish about 9.30.
Looks like it's going to be a strongly opinionated one...

I've read it. It was ok. Didn't think it was that good, certainly won't be going out of my way to read any more of hers! Looking forward to discussion though.

i've nearly finished

tbh i'm struggling to put it down i want to get to the end to see what happens always a sign of a good book

Read this a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it, but can't remember it now - I might revisit it now.

who else has been reading this then?

It was very WELL WRITTEN

I'd like to read more of her books but not if they are harrowing: I'll never sleep

<SCOWL>

well I've finished it

YUCK

I can't believe you made me read it

It was BAAADDDD

I agree, had forgotten how strong a stomach needed when reading this. But still enjoy her writing despite the bludgeoning/molesting/grieving going on.

Has anyone read her latest (called When Will There be Good News?)?

good excuse medicinal use of sherry

maybe i should have one too to get me to the end although may increase incidents of the wet eye condition

THIS IS A BIT HARROWING

I am needing a small sherry when I go to bed to read

just started it and omg one chapter in and i'm bawling. don't know if i'll make it to the end

Just reading first novel since dd was born - An Interpretation of Murder. Would love to join in so will buy Case Histories next!

I am going to join in. Will pop out and get the book this week.
Shame I won't be able to join in the chat though . It'll be 6.30am here. How annoying!!

Gosh I loved this too. Read it in hospital whilst waiting for pre-eclampsia to end in birth. Bit of a weird time to read it given that its largely about horrible things happening to children!

Kate Atkinson won't be able to join us for this chat, which is a shame, but it does mean everyone can freely express opinion without any embarrassment (Northern Lurker, don't be shy...)

Hope you're all able to join us tonight for THE GHOST ROAD chat - see you at 8

I loved this book

but I lived on the street in Cambridge for a bit where some of this was set, which made it a bit to close to home.

I loved Case Histories.

Have been meaning to read some of her other stuff for ages, but haven't got around to it yet.

I read this a while ago, it was okay. Don't know what all the fuss is about.

I haven't read Emotionally Wired but I do love Kate Atkinson. I really enjoyed this one.

Ooh ooh! I loved that, and have just read the follow-up (although not the third Jackson Brodie one as it's still HB).

Count me in, anyway!

Oh dear - well I think I'd better not join you if the author is going to be there because I thought this book was hugely overrated and the plot resolution involved a massive cop-out. Brilliantly inventive - no - brilliantly annoying - yes

I love her books too - although she has started to freak me out a little bit - I used to live in York when I read Behind the Scenes at the Museum, then I moved to near Cambridge where another of her books is set (indeed it mentions where I live specifically) and then started to read the one set in Edinburgh on the train on the way to Edinburgh...

I really love Emotionally Weird. And her short stories book.

I love Kate Atkinson's books - this one is particularly good. Happy reading.

What a fantastic book - and I've just read the new one, "When will there be good news?" which is if anything even better.

I want to be Kate Atkinson when I grow up.

Oh yes, I read this a few years ago for the first time, and then again last year.

Had mixed feelings about the book.

Am currently trying to read One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson, but can't get into it.

well it made me BAWL
not sure I could discuss it TBH. It was very good though

oh that's a great book
2 years on I still think about that

the method they choose to conceal their guilt is very clever

We'll be chatting about our Book of the Month, Kate Atkinson's CASE HISTORIES, a brilliantly inventive take on the crime novel, on Tuesday 25 November from 8-10pm.

I'll let you know asap if the author can join us - and don't forget you can order your copy here.

Keen to know how the votes turned out? Have a snoop at the results here

And, for anyone who missed them first time round, here were November's book choices